February Savings and Net Worth

Monies put away in savings during February:

401k (includes match) $867

Roth IRA (Hers) $300

Roth IRA (His) $300

HSA account $500

Taxable Mutual Fund $210

Emergency Fund $300

Extra EF from side-gigs/found money $305

Total saved for the month $2,782

We may have to trim the amount going into savings in the spring/summer since the kids have more activities (sports and such). But we won't let it go below $2k per month. In late spring thru early fall, I have regular side-gig work of $500-$700 per month (cutting lawns 1 or 2 evenings per week after work. I've been doing that since 1992). So I am hopeful we can stay in the $2,500 per month range.

The grass cutting money is normally used to max-out the HIS and HERS IRA's. We will retire before we are old. We also use some of the money for our vacation at the beach.

Net worth as of 2/28/14 $562,301.00
Increase year to date $ 13,631.00

Vacation OBX '09

I warned you...more vacation pictures...

Why I never run barefoot, even at the beach


Sinking into the beach


Eric doing what he does best...eating and getting in trouble


The view from our deck


Mary the Shell Hunter


The Teens thinking they are cool


Running down the Dunes


After a face plant


The Hunter acting sweet..she's not fooling anyone


Mary who is actually sweet, yappy, but sweet

Vacation OBX '09

Some Random Vacation Pictures - More to Come

Vacation

We are back from our week at the beach (OBX, NC). It stared poorly. See my Bride's blog for details.

Pictures and more details to follow

Be back in a few days

Off to West Virginia to camp with the 3 middle boys, plus some friends and their boys. Camping as in staying in a house in the woods. I don't do tents.

Happy St Nick Day everyone.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Last week was family vacation in Kitty Hawk, NC - part of the Outer Banks(OBX). My mother and SIL came with us so there were 14 people in the 4 bedroom beach house we rented (Josh is in NH).

The drive down went well. We decided to leave at 5am - a compromise between myself and the bride. I voted for 6 and she wanted 4am. I only get up at 4 to run...not to drive.

My sister, her husband and their 4 kids rented the house next to ours. Friends of theirs stayed with them and they also have 4 kids and they brought along a cousin. So it was 27 people total between the 2 houses.

Shockingly no one killed anyone and there were very few arguments. So I don't have any funny Vacation stories.

In general the week was great. We didn't do a whole lot of activities or sightseeing. We basically were on the beach from around 10am until dinner every night. The kids played great together on the beach. The big kids watched out for the little kids in the water so dad actually got to read on the beach.

Evenings were spent climbing the sand dunes, in the hot tub, watching the Olympics or playing games.

The biggest problem was that 6 of our kids got the stomach virus thing (again - we just went through this 6 weeks ago - is there a patron saint of hurling?). They got it one by one through out the week, with the 6th to get throwing-up 5 minutes into the ride home.

To make matters worse, the night before we left one of my sister's friend's kids got the stomach virus from us...no word on whether or not any of the others have gotten it since they got home.

Also my sister's oldest was sick the whole and spent a lot of hours at the local health clinic. Turns out she had pneumonia. They left Thursday evening since she felt so lousy.

One night we bought 2 bushels of hard crabs and grilled some dogs and steaks and had a great meal for all 27 of us. Another night we ordered pizza. Other than that we cooked at the house.

A side note - when did it become common practice for all body types/sizes to wear two-piece bathing suits? On certain bodies a one-piece is much more flattering. As my 94 year-old grandmother says "do people even look in the mirror before they go out?"


A vacation summary.

The Good

Time with the Family
Daily Mass
Running
Crabs
Good Weather
The Water and Beach
Coming home with about half the cash I took

The Bad

Leaving
The Drive Home

The Ugly

6 of my kids throwing-up during the week.
1 of my sister's kid getting pneumonia
1 of her friends kids getting the stomach bug from us
very plus size women wearing bikinis

Here are a few of the 500 pictures we took

Barbara and Friend

13 of us

Dad, Mom and Hunter

Playing at the Sand Dunes

Alex and Mary at the Dunes

All the Kids but one

Cecilia Hunting for Treasures

Down Time at Night

Today's Workouts

6 hour drive home from the beach.

4 mile run before bed.

Stuff Catholics Like - Day 7 at the Beach - Friday's Auto-Post

Daily Mass -

Since we are at the beach this week and have been going to 9am daily Mass as a family, I figured this would be a good topic for this weeks installment.

Catholics love daily Mass, that doesn't necessarily mean they actually go to it regularly. But they love to talk about going to it. It's kinda like a badge of honor to go to Daily Mass - like being a Super Catholic of something. It must have something to do with that daily infusion of Eucharistic Grace.

The blue-hairs and geezers go to daily Mass in droves at our church. I mean what else do they have to do all day. We kid cause we care. Actually they are a great example to the younger generations of how to live out their faith.

Lent is also a busy time at daily Mass. At our church, the pews of the chapel are packed during Lent.

Day 6 at the Beach - Thursday's Auto-Post

Hello again from lovely Kitty Hawk, NC. I hope all of you are doing well and having a great week. Who am I kidding, I'm at the beach, I don't care how any of y'all are. No offense intended. But I am very self centered this week.

Speaking of me, I was really upset that I had to drop-out of the bidding on Elvis' Peacock Jumpsuit.
I would have look so good in it, really I would have. Once the bidding got over a Buck 3.80, I called it quits.



"Lemonade that cool refreshing drink"

Day 5 at the Beach - Wednesday's Auto-Post

Ok I may be getting too much sun. I knew that baby oil mixed with iodine would cost me one day.

Day 4 at the Beach - Tuesday's Auto-Post

I hope you are praying for us at the beach and in particular that you are praying for good weather. Cause if it's raining down here the whole week, I'm going to go all Jack Nicholson in The Shinning on the family.

I mean a man can only play Candy Lane and Go Fish and watch Leave to Beaver reruns so many times.

So stayed tuned to CNN to see if there are any 'domestic' spats at the OBX this week.

Today's Workouts

Just got back from a 5 mile un with my bil. Heading to 9am Mass now with DW, then to the beach.

xoxoxo

Day 3 at the Beach - Monday's Auto-Post

Don't hate me cause I'm lounging on the beach getting a savage tan.

I've uploaded a picture of me from today.





I know, I know...I need to work on the tanlines. But this is a family beach.

Today's Workouts

6am - 4 mile run.

7am - Shopping for supplies at the local Food Lion with Dominic.

9am - Mass.

10:30 - To the local donut shop where they make them fresh for you.

11am - beach

2pm - T-storm just us back to the beach house

2:30 - Women folk went to Goodwill to shop for other people's junk ;)


KayleighJeanne - just a short post while it's raining. Lots of sand between my toes

Silly Sunday - Day 2 at the Beach - Sunday's Auto-Post

I love Lucy (well actually I Love Sam...but you get the idea)

Today's Workouts

Hello from Kitty Hawk, NC. 4 mile run before dinner. Ran along the beach road.

We made it safe and sound, an uneventful trip - 5 hours - quicker than expected.

We compromised and decided to leave at 5am - actual departure time was 5:28.


Oh and I'm able to connect to the wireless Internet that's running in the house next door to us. My sister is staying there.

Day 1 at the Beach - Saturday's Auto-Post

Depending on the time of day you are reading this, we are hanging out on the beach working on our skin cancer or (God-forbid) still in the Family Truckster 'enjoying' the 5 hour ride down to North Carolina's Outer Banks. Which means I've probably threatened them a 100 times with 'turning this van around' or 'pulling it over' or 'I told you to go before we left'.

Not sure what time we left this morning since I typed this a few days ago and at that time departure time was still being 'discussed' between myself and DW. Her vote was for 4am - mine for 6am. We are both up early but I will be the one doing all the driving and she will be doing all the sleeping on the way their. We both want to beat traffic but we can't check-in to the house until 3-6pm. So I figure if we get there by noon and hang on the beach for awhile that will be good. Sam would like to get there around 10am. Either way by the time we are allowed in the beach house the kids will be sweaty, smelly, sandy, cranky messes......pretty much the norm actually.

We will be at the beach for one glorious week or it may feel like a week in one of the outer rings of hell. It's hard to tell with vacations...they can go either way.

There will me 14 of us (me, 1 wife, 10 kids (Josh is in NH), 1 mother and 1 SIL) staying in a 4 BR beach house. The good news is we are right across the street from the beach. Like 25 yards away.

My sister and BIL and friends of theirs are staying in a house right next door. Each couple has 4 kids, so we will have 18 kids between the 2 houses.

Like I said; it could be fantastic or it could be like pulling your fingernails off with a pair of pliers.

Life's a Beach

We are heading to the OBX (Kitty Hawk) in the morning for a week of sun. Don't hate me because I'm tan.

Those of you who know where I live, stay out of our liquor cabinet (that means you Mary Poppins and The Donk) and away from my running shoes - the pairs that I'm not bringing with me - couldn't fit all of them in the 15-passenger van. And Donk, stay away from my HED3 race wheels...I know you covet them.

I've got a post a day scheduled to show up while I'm on vacation, so the 3 or 4 of you people out there who actually read this schlock, stop by when you can. And try and behave :)

Take me Home Country Roads

Well we made it home (barely) from our semi-tolerable trip to WV this weekend. The tolerable part was that we had all the kids together for the weekend. This might have been the last time for a long time.

My SIL has a house in the woods in Berkley Springs WV. A un-air conditioned house! It was hot during the day but it did cool down at night. The community has a pool so we went there during the day on Saturdays.

I don’t like trying to sleep in the heat and I don’t like all the bugs and I don’t like to camp (give me a Four Seasons Hotel at the beach anytime). So we don’t go there to often. This was one of those humor the wife trips – which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just that Sam is one of 9 kids so they went camping a lot for vacations. And since I’m an only child (well I do have a brother and sister) we vacationed at beaches in nice houses or condominiums that had AIR CONDITIONING. The house did have electricity and indoor plumbing so it wasn’t like we were really roughing it but it was close enough for this spoiled suburb-boy.

I think everyone actually had an ok time. Well a few of the teens grumbled about the lack of cell-phone service, no Internet and no TV. But other than that they survived.
.
The little boys (6, 8, 10) had a blast because I brought 3 BB guns which they never get to use at home. The gun-nazi won’t let them. They went through 4,000 BB’s! And nobody shot their eye out. When we first got there and got the guns out, Dominic (6) says “let’s throw the bullets in the campfire and see what happens”. Um, Dominic, they aren’t bullets and if they were its probably not a good idea to throw them in the fire, at least when your mom is around.

We also roasted marshmallows and made Smores, shot off fireworks, cooked out, some of the boys slept in a tent…I took a nice bed thank you very much, and we played games.

Around 2pm Sunday on the way home, around 90 miles from home the Van broke-down. So there we are sitting on the side of the interstate in the heat with all the kids. Good times! I called AAA and Sam called friends of ours that live about 20 minutes from where we were stuck. They said we could borrow their big van; they have 9 kids (slackers). So after about 45 minutes the tow-truck and the loaner van showed up and we were able to get on the road again. Thank God for fellow large families.

I think the timing chain went on the van, waiting for the garage to call. This is especially fun since we just spent almost $1000 on this vehicle 2 weeks ago…

So on top of the $100 we spent on gas to get there and back, we are going to have a fat repair bill and then tomorrow we get to drive the borrowed van back to our friends and pick up our van.

update - Sam drove back to the scene of the crime and picked up the van, $493, ignition coil and a tune up...

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Open your eyes and you might actually hit something

Which way did he go?

Nothing is safe around these guys

Got to start them young

Is my marshmallow done yet?

Princess don't work

Family Game Night

Stranded